Motorcycle drivers, race car drivers, go-cart drivers, snowmobile drivers, bicycle riders, and others frequently wear a protective helmet on their heads to protect themselves from traumatic head injuries. While these protective helmets are great at protecting heads from sustaining the full impact in a collision, they may impede the wearer's ability to see (and perhaps even fully hear) potential danger approaching, particularly from behind.
Various prior art solutions to this problem have been proposed. For example, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2013/0305437 to Weller et al. teaches associating a single rearward-facing camera mounted to the back of a helmet providing the rider with real-time video via an integrated display system. The real-time camera disclosed in Weller is capable of viewing 150-200 degrees about the helmet. Weller teaches that the display is preferably mounted such that it appears to be “behind” the chin bar of the helmet to minimize obstruction of the rider's forward view of the road through the helmet opening. Weller '437 application also discloses that the display could be a heads-up display. The Weller '437 application further teaches that a forward-facing second camera may be operably mounted to the helmet along with additional sensors (such as accelerometers, scanning LIDAR, and/or radar). Finally, Weller '437 teaches the use of an air-powered electricity generating system to recharge the helmet's battery pack that powers the display, camera, and sensors.
Gindin, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2013/0128046 similarly discloses the use of a helmet mounted display and single video camera to provide views of “scenes not directly in the field of view of the viewer” by mounting the camera in a direction other than the direction of view of the user of the helmet. See ¶¶[0009] and [0012]. Other helmet mounted cameras are also taught in the prior art. For instance, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0239080 to Moscato discloses a rear vision system having a single, head-mounted, rearward facing camera connected to a head-mounted display. De Oliveira, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0105035 discloses a safety helmet with a forward-facing integrated camera powered by a battery charged by a photovoltaic device.
Farb, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2015/0228066 discloses the use of a rearward facing sensor (e.g. computer vision, infrared, radar, or video) mounted to a bicycle frame (as opposed to a helmet), to determine the distance and velocity of a vehicle approaching toward a bicycle rider from behind and alerting the rider if the vehicle is on a close collision course. In one embodiment, Farb teaches using two rearward facing cameras mounted on the bicycle “to provide stereo vision capability to enhance depth perception or the ability to determine the distance between the rear approaching vehicle” and the system. Farb, ¶[0181]. The alerting system—which is disclosed as being attached to the bicycle handlebar—may include multi-colored LEDs “where the colors indicated the likelihood of the impending collision,” and/or an “audible alert that can pulse (beep) at different rates, provide an escalating sound level (dB) . . . in an escalating manner analogous with those described for the visual alerting system,” see Farb, ¶¶[0080]-[0085]. Farb also teaches the availability of forward-facing video, GPS, and accelerometers as well as the determination of a crash event and the video recording of the vehicle that crashed into the system.